John Curtice

This fellowship is focused on public opinion towards Scotland's constitutional future, and will address three key questions:

Are people's attitudes towards independence simply a reflection of their sense of national identity, or are they are also shaped by what they think the consequences of independence would be?

Will people vote for or against independence simply based on this issue, or will they be influenced by their attitudes towards the UK government or the various political parties?

Has introducing devolution inevitably put Scotland on a path towards independence, or can a stable basis be found for governing Scotland within the framework of the United Kingdom?

The fellowship has resulted in the creation of a website, www.whatscotlandthinks.org, which provides a comprehensive collection of data on public attitudes towards Scotland's future together together with blogs and briefings on the subject. This will be followed by a book length study in the new year.

History

Posts by this author:

Despite four decades of membership, the UK never fully took the European Union to its heart. June’s Brexit vote revealed a social division that reflected very different views about the costs and benefits of the EU, writes John Curtice. This article appeared originally in the September 2016 edition o... Read more

John Curtice discusses the post-referendum period and how to handle the immediate consequences of the Brexit decision. This post originally appeared on the What UK Thinks: EU website.
The high drama of the post-referendum period has given way to the relative quiet of high summer, albeit that Labour... Read more

John Curtice looks at the challenge for opinion polls when estimating the likely outcome of #EURef.
Estimating the likely outcome of the referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU was always going to be a challenge for the opinion polls. In a general election they have years of experience as to w... Read more

Do we all think the same about Europe? In one sense the obvious answer to that question is, ‘No’. After all, as our Poll of Polls shows, support for the two sides in the EU Referendum campaign that is now beginning to get into gear is almost evenly matched. At the moment at least Britain appears to... Read more

John Curtice introduces a new Poll of Polls on What Scotland Thinks
Regular users of this site during the referendum will remember that one of its more popular features was a ‘Poll of Polls’ of voting intentions in the referendum. It showed the average share of the vote for Yes and No recorded by t... Read more

John Curtice looks at the latest polls on independence, more devolution, further referendums and the party battle. This post originally appeared on What Scotland Thinks.
A further tranche of results from YouGov’s poll for The Times was released on Saturday, while additional findings from Ipsos MORI... Read more

This blog originally appeared on What Scotland Thinks
John Curtice asks how well did the polls do and which was closest to the result?
Clearly the most important features of the referendum result are which side won and which lost, and how politicians react and respond to the outcome. But there is al... Read more

John Curtice examines the latest polls, in a post originally published on What Scotland Thinks.
Three polls of voting intentions were released yesterday evening and appear in today’s papers. One was conducted by ICM for The Scotsman, one by Survation for the Daily Mail while the third was undertaken... Read more

In a blog originally published at The Conversation, John Curtice rounds up the debate thus far.
Just a few short weeks ago, it looked as though it was clear who was going to win the Scottish independence referendum. Although the polls persistently disagreed with each other as to how far it was behin... Read more

John Curtice of What Scotland Thinks on new entrants to the polling scene.
The excitement generated by the narrowing of the No lead in the polls has unsurprisingly persuaded new media organisations to enter the polling fray. On Friday The Guardian commissioned its first poll of voting intentions in... Read more

Post type: Blog entry

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Latest blogs

Aileen McHarg looks at last week’s decision by the Supreme Court in the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Legal Continuity) (Scotland) Bill reference which demonstrates both the strength and the weakness of Holyrood as a legislature.

The Supreme Court's ruling on the Scottish Continuity Bill gave both sides something but acknowledged that the vast bulk of the Bill was within Holyrood's competence at the time it was passed however, suggests Sionaidh Douglas-Scott, the strong feeling that devolved interests are not taken seriously highlights underlying fractures within the Union.

Although the N-VA has insisted it left the Belgian government to pursue ’principled opposition’ those principle are, says Coree Brown Swan, at the very least informed by a strategy that allows it to maintain policy influence from outside government while countering the electoral threat posed by a resurgent Vlaams Belang.